How CLT and glulam are made, what a small plant costs compared to a big one, and how fast each gets product out the door. With Ledinek’s Jaka Bradač.

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Ledinek Engineering: https://www.ledinek.com/

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Read the article: www.masstimber.group/podcast/building-a-clt-plant-why-starting-small-can-beat-starting-big

0:00 Intro
1:32 Meet Jaka Bradač, Ledinek Engineering
2:37 How European and North American CLT plants got started
5:42 Why European producers grew more carefully
8:06 The case for small CLT plants: $25M vs. $250M
9:36 Demand for new plants in North America
11:08 What a small CLT plant should make
14:08 Who’s building small lines
15:21 Build time: 100,000 m³ vs. 30,000 m³ lines
17:06 How a small line adds capacity
20:51 How small European plants grew
22:40 Sawmill integration and fiber costs
25:31 How CLT is made, from log to panel
29:45 Machine setup for different species
30:35 The Southern Yellow Pine test
33:09 Hardwood CLT and yellow poplar
35:10 Making bigger beams for taller buildings
40:22 Wrap-up

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An ambitious mass timber design usually meets the same three answers. It's not feasible. It'll be too expensive. Switch that part to steel. This episode is about a manufacturer that built its entire business around a fourth answer: yes.

Dave Savard, Director of Sales and Marketing, and Geneviève Constancis, partner and Director of Business Development at Art Massif, break down Aspen Pure, the company's new structural glulam made from quaking aspen, and the Samuel H. Scripps Theater Center canopy for Hudson Valley Shakespeare.


0:00 – Meet Art Massif
2:10 – How they started
4:35 – Aspen Pure
7:45 – Aspen design values
10:05 – Why aspen
16:30 – The Samuel H. Scripps Theater Center
20:00 – Design assist
27:30 – Architects are allowed to ask for what they want
30:40 – How 3D curved glulam beams get made
40:00 – First timber project advice

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Attend the Mass Timber Group Summit: https://www.masstimber.group/summit

Mass timber needs steel, and steel needs mass timber. This episode is a panel on hybrid mass timber construction: where CLT, glulam, and cold-formed steel contribute to industry growth, and why hybrid systems are how mass timber scales in North America. It covers what actually drives cost in a mass timber building, how to control fiber volume and connection design, why standardizing connections and erection the way the steel industry already has with AISC is the next step, and how composite crews of ironworkers and carpenters erect mass timber faster and safer than a single trade.

If you're exploring mass timber for your own projects, one of the first questions is often "who makes the right product for my project?"

To help with that, we created a Mass Timber Producer Map featuring 39 North American producers and fabricators. You can explore manufacturers near your project, see the products they produce, visit their websites, and connect directly with them.

👉 Get access to the Mass Timber Producer Map by joining our newsletter! https://www.masstimber.group/newsletter-youtube

Find New Projects & Partners at the Summit.

Grow your mass timber network. Join our newsletter